Froza Leather
You pass through the town of Redbridge on your way to Welgis and The Thousand Stars. As you make your way through the streets, you see the colourful people who call this place home. Urukani, zerrani and tepilar wander the streets, on their way from one side of the Arta River to the other.
It's not long before you arrive at the edge of town, where one of the Knights of the city is there to greet you. A young zerrani with bright red hair, he takes you to the town's greatest treasure; its herds of froza and the small army of herders that keep them alive and prepare their hides for sale.
Besides the herds, you see several people (other urukani and zerrani based on their tusks and golden skin) in process of making things from the hides. Full of curiosity, you wander over and see them removing the tough coarse hairs from the hides with jagged knives. One of them accidentally cuts themselves on their knife, and then passes a hand over it and mutters something and the wound heals.
Another pair of people is dyeing the hides. They are putting them through a vat of something that smells disgusting, and you instinctively hold your nose. The hide comes out of the vat dripping a blackish liquid, and the hide itself has become a faded grey. You watch as they take thin knives and scrape off the rest of the liquid, leaving the hides to the side before hanging them up to dry.
You see a young boy, his hands stained a rainbow of colours from the elaborate vats of dyes. He picks up another set of hides that have already dried, and he hefts them over one shoulder. Guided by an older urukan dressed in the finished product, he places them in many hundreds of vats of bright colours. The hides come out orange, red, yellow, green, blue, pink, purple, jet black, beige...a colourful tradition indeed!
Appearance and Properties
On first inspection, froza hide looks like regular goat or cow leather, except for its dark grey-black colour. The hides have thick, coarse hair and have a very plain colour. But the various scraping, dyeing and crafting procedures of froza leather differentiate it very quickly. Froza hide is thin but very durable and very accepting of dyes. This makes it much more desirable for coloured leather or leather armour than regular leather, but its rarity and the temperament of the froza themselves prevents it from being popular.History and Cultural Uses
Froza leather used to be mostly used for clothing in urukani society. The herd animal was relied on for many things, from milk and food to clothing and armour. More traditional urukan designs often include unprocessed froza leather as a dark patch on otherwise brighter hide that has been stripped, dyed and etched. Now, cows and goats provide most of the necessary food and clothing leather for the urukani, as they are much more docile than the frustrating froza. But those hoping to use more traditional orcish iconography have kept the process alive these past several centuries, passed down from one generation to the next. Today, ornate robes, armour and tunics are made with froza leather, and the fashion has caught on among non-urukan and non-zerran races in recent years. The orcs and half-orcs tend to want to keep the traditional hexagonal and circular designs to themselves for religious reasons, but they have become great leatherworkers, renowned the world over.
Type
Livestock
Value
5 gold pieces/bolt
Rarity
Rare
Color
Dark-grey or black.
Source
The hide comes from the froza, the ram-like herd animals tended to by the urukani. When the animal reaches the end of its short life, the urukani will skin it and use the hide to make clothing and armour.Trade and Sale
Large centres of froza herding are found in central Quempo and northwestern De'aria. These places herd, breed, and process the hides of the froza, where they are sent to nearby large settlements for sale (such as Kwinan for the former location and Can'arta for the latter). At that point, they find their way to high-end tailors, armourers or traditional clothesmakers who then make it into the desired item of clothing.Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
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